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74-539: Tafsīr al Burhān is an exegesis on the Quran written by the Zaydi Imam Abu'l-Fath an-Nasir ad-Dailami in the 11th century. The book is still in existence in manuscript. This article related to the Quran is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about an Islamic studies book is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Exegesis Textual criticism investigates

148-682: A rabbi from Navarre, who visited the Jews of Mosul and the ruins of Assyria during his travels throughout the Middle East. The identification of the city of Babylon was made in 1616 by Pietro Della Valle . Pietro gave "remarkable descriptions" of the site, and brought back to Europe inscribed bricks that he had found at Nineveh and Ur . Between 1761 and 1767, Carsten Niebuhr , a Danish mathematician, made copies of cuneiform inscriptions at Persepolis in Persia as well as sketches and drawing of Nineveh, and

222-621: A coherent and unified view on the Bible as a whole, for example, from a Catholic or Reformed ( Calvinist ) perspective, or a commentary that focuses on textual criticism or historical criticism from a secular point of view. However, each volume will inevitably lean toward the personal emphasis bias of its author, and within any commentaries there may be great variety in the depth, accuracy, and critical or theological strength of each volume. In Christianity , biblical exegeses have relied on various doctrines. The doctrine of four senses of Scripture

296-515: A collection which formed the nucleus of the Mesopotamian antiquities collection at the British Museum. Before his untimely death at the age of 34, Claudius Rich wrote two memoirs on the ruins of Babylon and the inscriptions found therein, two works which may be said to "mark the birth of Assyriology and the related cuneiform studies." One of the largest obstacles scholars had to overcome during

370-456: A completely different language, Sumerian . "Sumerology" therefore gradually became a branch of Assyriology. Subsequent research showed that during the 2nd millennium BC , cuneiform writing had also been used for other languages such as Ugaritic , Hurrian , Hittite or Elamite , which became subsumed under the increasingly ambiguous term Assyriology. Today the term designates the study of texts written in cuneiform script, irrespective of whether

444-724: A creative work, such as a film, novel, poetry or other artistic output by the PhD candidate. Together, the two elements form the candidate's research thesis. In the late 1930s, Leo Strauss called for the first time for a reconsideration of the "distinction between exoteric (or public) and esoteric (or secret) teaching." In 1952 he published Persecution and the Art of Writing , arguing that serious writers write esoterically, that is, with multiple or layered meanings, often disguised within irony or paradox, obscure references, even deliberate self-contradiction. Esoteric writing serves several purposes: protecting

518-413: A foundation. The talmudical hermeneutics form asmachta is defined as finding hints for a given law. Midrash exegesis was largely in the nature of homiletics , expounding the Bible not primarily in order to understand the documents of the past (although in some instances it is indeed the case), but to find religious edification , moral instruction, and sustenance for the thoughts and feelings of

592-566: A large scale, was despatched by the Orientgesellschaft in 1899 with the object of exploring the ruins of Babylon; the palace of Nebuchadrezzar and the great processional road were laid bare, and W. Andrae subsequently conducted excavations at Qal'at Sherqat, the site of Assur . Even the Turkish government has not held aloof from the work of exploration, and the Museum at Istanbul is filled with

666-731: A product of the social environment and human intelligence of their authors. Catholic centres of biblical exegesis include: For more than a century, German universities such as Tübingen have had reputations as centers of exegesis; in the US, the Divinity Schools of Chicago , Harvard and Yale became famous. Robert A. Traina's book Methodical Bible Study is an example of Protestant Christian exegesis. The Mimamsa school of Indian philosophy , also known as Pūrva Mīmāṃsā ("prior" inquiry, also Karma-Mīmāṃsā ), in contrast to Uttara Mīmāṃsā ("posterior" inquiry, also Brahma-Mīmāṃsā ),

740-549: A sensation in the scholarly world, generating a number of archeological and academic expeditions to the Middle East. In 1811, Claudius James Rich , an Englishman and a resident for the East India Company in Baghdad, began examining and mapping the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, and collecting numerous inscribed bricks, tablets, boundary stones, and cylinders, including the famous Nebuchadnezzar Cylinder and Sennacherib Cylinder,

814-528: A stone coffer or ark in which were two inscribed tables of alabaster of rectangular shape, as well as of a palace which had been destroyed by the Babylonians but restored by Shalmaneser III (858 BC). From the latter came the bronze gates with hammered reliefs, which are now in the British Museum. The remains of a palace of Ashurbanipal at Nimrud (Calah) were also excavated, and hundreds of enamelled tiles were disinterred. Two years later (1880–1881) Rassam

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888-602: Is a concept used in biblical hermeneutics . In the 3rd century, the theologian Origen , a graduate of Catechetical School of Alexandria , formulated the principle of the three senses of Scripture (literal, moral and spiritual) from the Jewish method of interpretation ( midrash ) used by Paul of Tarsus in Epistle to the Galatians chapter 4. The historical-grammatical method is a Christian hermeneutical method that strives to discover

962-516: Is calculated that the debris underneath the pavement, 30 feet thick, must represent a period of about 3000 years, more especially as older constructions had to be leveled before the pavement was laid. In the deepest part of the excavations, inscribed clay tablets and fragments of stone vases are still found, though the cuneiform characters upon them are of a very archaic type, and sometimes even retain their primitive pictorial forms. also known as Digital Ancient Near Eastern Studies (DANES). Analogous to

1036-720: Is often used as a derogatory term. One of the early examples of exegesis, and one of the larger corpora of text commentaries from the ancient world, comes from Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) in the first millennium BCE. Containing over 860 manuscripts, the majority of which date to 700–100 BCE, these commentaries explore numerous types of texts, including literary works (such as the Babylonian Epic of Creation ), medical treatises, magical texts, ancient dictionaries, and law collections (the Code of Hammurabi ). Most of them, however, comment on divination treatises, in particular treatises that predict

1110-536: Is strongly concerned with textual exegesis, and consequently gave rise to the study of philology and the philosophy of language . Its notion of shabda "speech" as indivisible unity of sound and meaning ( signifier and signified ) is due to Bhartrhari (7th century). Tafsīr ( Arabic : تفسير , tafsīr , "interpretation") is the Arabic word for exegesis, commentary or explanation of the Qur'an . It explains those aspects of

1184-583: Is the archaeological, anthropological, historical, and linguistic study of the cultures that used cuneiform writing. The field covers Pre Dynastic Mesopotamia, Sumer , the early Sumero-Akkadian city-states , the Akkadian Empire , Ebla , the Akkadian and Imperial Aramaic speaking states of Assyria , Babylonia and the Sealand Dynasty , the migrant foreign dynasties of southern Mesopotamia, including

1258-407: Is the subject of on-going research by the small, international community of scholars who specialize in the field of Assyriology . Commentaries on Plato include a large corpus of literature, especially in the ancient and medieval world, to explain and clarify the works of Plato. Many Platonist philosophers in the centuries following Plato sought to clarify and summarise his thoughts, but it was during

1332-701: The Phaedrus , Strauss proposed that the classical and medieval art of esoteric writing is the proper medium for philosophic learning: rather than displaying philosophers' thoughts superficially, classical and medieval philosophical texts guide their readers in thinking and learning independently of imparted knowledge. Thus, Strauss agrees with the Socrates of the Phaedrus , where the Greek indicates that, insofar as writing does not respond when questioned, good writing provokes questions in

1406-552: The Four Gospels , may be multiple- or single-volume, while short books such as the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel , Esther , and Jeremiah (i.e. Book of Susanna , Prayer of Azariah , Bel and the Dragon , Additions to Esther , Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah ), or the pastoral or Johannine epistles are often condensed into one volume. The form of each book may be identical or allow for variations in methodology among

1480-658: The Gathas and those on dādīg texts, such as the Vendīdād , the Hērbedestān and the Nērangestān . Since many 19th and 20th century works by Zoroastrians contain an element of exegesis, while on the other hand no exegetical literature in the strict sense of the word can be said to exist, the phenomenon of modern Zoroastrian exegesis as such will be discussed here, without detailed reference to individual texts. Several universities, including

1554-570: The Gutians , Amorites , Kassites , Arameans , Suteans and Chaldeans . Assyriology can be included to cover Neolithic pre-Dynastic cultures dating to as far back as 8000 BC, to the Islamic Conquest of the 7th century AD, so the topic is significantly wider than that implied by the root "Assyria". The large number of cuneiform clay tablets preserved by these Sumero-Akkadian and Assyro-Babylonian cultures provide an extremely large resource for

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1628-574: The Holy Spirit inspired the authors of the scriptural texts, and so the words of those texts convey a divine revelation . In this view of exegesis, the principle of sensus plenior applies—that because of its divine authorship, the Bible has a "fuller meaning" than its human authors intended or could have foreseen. Rational exegesis bases its operation on the idea that the authors have their own inspiration (in this sense, synonymous with artistic inspiration ), so their works are completely and utterly

1702-583: The Sasanian era. This lengthy period of oral transmission has clearly helped to give the Middle Persian Zand its characteristic shape and has, in a sense, limited its scope. Although the later tradition makes a formal distinction between "Gathic" (gāhānīg), "legal" (dādīg), and perhaps "ritual" (hādag-mānsrīg) Avestan texts, there appear to be no significant differences in approach between the Pahlavi commentary on

1776-586: The Sorbonne in Paris, Leiden University , and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Free University of Brussels), put exegesis in a secular context, next to exegesis in a religious tradition. Secular exegesis is an element of the study of religion . At Australian and British universities, the exegesis forms part of the required work for fine arts, including creative-writing doctorates . A scholarly text accompanies

1850-689: The Talmud , but continued during ancient times, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance ; it remains a subject of study today. Jews have centers for exegetic studies around the world, in each community: they consider exegesis an important tool for the understanding of scripture. Associated with the rabbinic text studies, such methodology is known to adopt a wide assortment of literary tools, in conjunction with meticulous, widespread engagement with classical exegetical literature. Zoroastrian exegesis consists basically of

1924-580: The midrash literature. Jewish exegetes have the title mefarshim ( מפרשים , "commentators"). The Midrash is a compilation of homiletic teachings or commentaries on the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), a biblical exegesis of the Pentateuch and its paragraphs related to the Law or Torah , which also forms an object of analysis. It comprises the legal and ritual Halakha , the collective body of Jewish laws, and exegesis of

1998-533: The 19th century, Western scholars commonly understood that philosophical writing is not at home in any polity, no matter how liberal. Insofar as it questions conventional wisdom at its roots, philosophy must guard itself especially against those readers who believe themselves authoritative, wise, and liberal defenders of the status quo. In questioning established opinions, or in investigating the principles of morality, philosophers of old found it necessary to convey their messages in an oblique manner. Their "art of writing"

2072-581: The Biblical author's original intended meaning in the text. It is the primary method of interpretation for many conservative Protestant exegetes who reject the historical-critical method to various degrees (from the complete rejection of historical criticism of some fundamentalist Protestants to the moderated acceptance of it in the Catholic Church since Pope Pius XII ), in contrast to the overwhelming reliance on historical-critical interpretation, often to

2146-451: The Danish mathematician, published accurate copies of three trilingual inscriptions from the ruins at Persepolis . Niebuhr showed that the inscriptions were written from left to right, and that each of the three inscriptions contained three different types of cuneiform writing, which he labelled Class I, Class II, and Class III (now known to be Old Persian , Akkadian , and Elamite ). Class I

2220-566: The East Semitic language of Akkadian , but due to the influence of lexical lists written in Sumerian language on cuneiform scholarship, they often contain Sumerian words or phrases as well. Cuneiform commentaries are important because they provide information about Mesopotamian languages and culture that are not available elsewhere in the cuneiform record. To give but one example, the pronunciation of

2294-599: The French consul Ernest de Sarzec had been excavating at Telloh , ancient Girsu, and bringing to light monuments of the pre-Semitic age; these included the diorite statues of Gudea now in the Louvre , the stone of which, according to the inscriptions upon them, had been brought from Magan in the Sinai peninsula . The subsequent excavations of de Sarzec in Telloh and its neighbourhood carried

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2368-542: The Mesopotamian intellectual tradition, a perspective that is important for "seeing things their way." Finally, cuneiform commentaries are also the earliest examples of textual interpretation. It has been repeatedly argued that they influenced rabbinical exegesis. The publication and interpretation of these texts began in the mid-19th century, with the discovery of the royal Assyrian libraries at Nineveh, from which ca. 454 text commentaries have been recovered. The study of cuneiform commentaries is, however, far from complete. It

2442-611: The Qur'an; and so on and so forth. Such an author of tafsīr is a mufassir ( 'مُفسر , mufassir , plural: مفسرون , mufassirūn ). Imam Razi 's Tafsir Kabir in Arabic and Mufti Naeemi 's Tafsir Naeemi in Urdu are some of the significant works on tafsīr in Islam. Traditional Jewish forms of exegesis appear throughout rabbinic literature , which includes the Mishnah , the two Talmuds , and

2516-580: The Qur’an that cannot be known by reason and logic such as the context of the revelation or abrogation of a specific ayah (verse). They are explained using reliable sources: other verses of Qur'an itself as some explain the other; the hadiths of The Prophet as the Quran was revealed on him ; the narrations of the Prophet's companions as they were the main context and reason for the revelation of some specific verses of

2590-657: The Roman era, that the Neoplatonists, in particular, wrote many commentaries on individual dialogues of Plato, many of which survive to the present day. A common published form of biblical exegesis is known as a Bible commentary and typically takes the form of a set of books, each of which is devoted to the exposition of one or two books of the Bible . Long books or those that contain much material either for theological or historical-critical speculation, such as Genesis or Psalms , may be split over two or three volumes. Some, such as

2664-554: The Semites in Babylon. In 1853, Rawlinson came to similar conclusions, texts written in this more ancient language were identified. At first, this language was called "Akkadian" or "Scythian" but it is now known to be Sumerian . This was the first indication to modern scholarship that this older culture and people, the Sumerians, existed at all. Systematic excavation of Mesopotamian antiquities

2738-462: The Targum, served to widen the knowledge of the scholars learned in the first division of the national science. The scribes found the material for their discourses, which formed a part of the synagogue service, in the second division of the several branches of the tradition. The Aggadah, the third of these branches, was the source material for the sermon. Jewish exegesis did not finish with the redaction of

2812-594: The actual deduction of a thesis from a passage as a means of proving a point, and the use of such a passage as a mere mnemonic device—a distinction that was also made in a different form later in the Babylonian schools. The Babylonian Amoraim were the first to use the expression " Peshaṭ " ("simple" or face value method) to designate the primary sense, contrasting it with the "Drash," the Midrashic exegesis. These two terms were later on destined to become important features in

2886-456: The cryptically written name of Gilgamesh, the hero of the Epic of Gilgamesh , was discovered in a cuneiform commentary on a medical text. However, the significance of cuneiform commentaries extends beyond the light they shed on specific details of Mesopotamian civilization. They shed light on what the concerns of the Mesopotamian literate elite were when they read some of the most widely studied texts in

2960-405: The early days of Assyriology was the decipherment of curious triangular markings on many of the artifacts and ruins found at Mesopotamian sites. These markings, which were termed " cuneiform " by Thomas Hyde in 1700, were long considered to be merely decorations and ornaments. It was not until late in the 18th century that they came to be considered some sort of writing. In 1778 Carsten Niebuhr ,

3034-455: The exclusion of all other hermeneutics, in liberal Christianity . Historical criticism, also known as the historical-critical method or higher criticism , is a branch of literary criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text". This is done to discover the text's primitive or original meaning in its original historical context and its literal sense. Revealed exegesis considers that

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3108-537: The field. Today, alternate terms such as "cuneiform studies" or "study of the Ancient Near East" are also used. Originally Assyriology referred primarily to the study of the texts in the Assyrian language discovered in quantity in the north of modern-day Iraq, ancient Assyria, following their initial discovery at Khorsabad in 1843. Although the decipherment of Old Persian cuneiform had taken place prior, much of

3182-832: The fundamental part of the national science, was the subject of the primary instruction. It was also divided into the three historic groups of the books of the Hebrew Bible: the Pentateuch , the Prophets , and the Hagiographa , called in traditional Hebrew attribution the Torah (the Law or Teaching), the Nevi'im (the Prophets) and the Kethuvim (the Writings) respectively. The intelligent reading and comprehension of

3256-411: The future from the appearance and movement of celestial bodies on the one hand ( Enūma Anu Enlil ), and from the appearance of a sacrificed sheep's liver on the other ( Bārûtu ). As with the majority of the thousands of texts from the ancient Near East that have survived to the present day, Mesopotamian text commentaries are written on clay tablets in cuneiform script . Text commentaries are written in

3330-469: The great temple of El-lil , removing layer after layer of debris and cutting sections in the ruins down to the virgin soil. Midway in the mound is a platform of large bricks stamped with the names of Sargon of Akkad and his son, Naram-Sin (2300 BC). As the debris above them is 34 feet thick, the topmost stratum being not later than the Parthian era (HV Hilprecht, The Babylonian Expedition , p. 23), it

3404-456: The hands of scholars. He was the first to excavate in Babylonia, where C.J. Rich had already done useful topographical work. Layard's excavations in this latter country were continued by W.K. Loftus , who also opened trenches at Susa , as well as by Julius Oppert on behalf of the French government. But it was only in the last quarter of the 19th century that anything like systematic exploration

3478-445: The history and origins of the text, but exegesis may include the study of the historical and cultural backgrounds of the author, text, and original audience. Other analyses include classification of the type of literary genres presented in the text and analysis of grammatical and syntactical features in the text itself. One who practices exegesis is called an exegete ( / ˌ ɛ k s ɪ ˈ dʒ iː t / ; from Greek ἐξηγητής ),

3552-467: The history of Hebrew Bible exegesis. In Babylonia was formulated the important principle that the Midrashic exegesis could not annul the primary sense. This principle subsequently became the watchword of commonsense Bible exegesis. How little it was known or recognized may be seen from the admission of Kahana , a Babylonian amora of the fourth century, that while at 18 years of age he had already learned

3626-432: The history of the city back to at least 4000 BC. A collection of more than 30,000 tablets has been found, which were arranged on shelves in the time of Gudea ( c.  2100 BC ). In 1886–1887 a German expedition under Robert Koldewey explored the cemetery of El Hiba (immediately to the south of Telloh), and for the first time made us acquainted with the burial customs of ancient Babylonia. Another German expedition, on

3700-480: The interpretation of the Avesta . However, the closest equivalent Iranian concept, zand, generally includes Pahlavi texts which were believed to derive from commentaries upon Avestan scripture, but whose extant form contains no Avestan passages. Zoroastrian exegesis differs from similar phenomena in many other religions in that it developed as part of a religious tradition which made little or no use of writing until well into

3774-516: The knowledge of writing systems that use several hundred core signs. There now exist many important grammatical studies and lexical aids. Although scholars can draw from a large corpus of literature, some tablets are broken, or in the case of literary texts where there may be many copies the language and grammar are often arcane. Scholars must be able to read and understand modern English , French , and German , as important references, dictionaries, and journals are published in those languages. The term

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3848-506: The many authors who collaborate to write a full commentary. Each book's commentary generally consists of a background and introductory section, followed by detailed commentary of the book pericope -by-pericope or verse-by-verse. Before the 20th century, a commentary would be written by a sole author, but in the recent period, a publishing board will commission a team of scholars to write a commentary, with each volume being divided out among them. A single commentary will generally attempt to give

3922-461: The many regarded as the most righteous guardians of morality. It was precisely these righteous personalities who would be most inclined to persecute/ostracize anyone who was in the business of exposing the noble or great lie upon which the authority of the few over the many stands or falls. Assyriology Assyriology (from Greek Ἀσσυρίᾱ , Assyriā ; and -λογία , -logia ), also known as Cuneiform studies or Ancient Near East studies ,

3996-413: The philosopher from the retribution of the regime, and protecting the regime from the corrosion of philosophy; it attracts the right kind of reader and repels the wrong kind; and ferreting out the interior message is in itself an exercise of philosophic reasoning. Taking his bearings from his study of Maimonides and Al-Farabi , and pointing further back to Plato's discussion of writing as contained in

4070-413: The plural of exegesis is exegeses ( / ˌ ɛ k s ɪ ˈ dʒ iː s iː z / ), and adjectives are exegetic or exegetical (e.g., exegetical commentaries). In biblical exegesis, the opposite of exegesis (to draw out) is eisegesis (to draw in), in the sense of an eisegetic commentator "importing" or "drawing in" their own subjective interpretations into the text, unsupported by the text itself. Eisegesis

4144-646: The present. The contrast between explanation of the literal sense and the Midrash, that did not follow the words, was recognized by the Tannaim and the Amoraim , although their idea of the literal meaning of a passage may not be allowed by more modern standards. The above-mentioned tanna , Ishmael b. Elisha said, rejecting an exposition of Eliezer b. Hyrcanus : "Truly, you say to Scripture, 'Be silent while I am expounding! ' ". Tannaitic exegesis distinguishes principally between

4218-529: The reader—questions that orient the reader towards an understanding of problems the author thought about with utmost seriousness. Strauss thus, in Persecution and the Art of Writing , presents Maimonides "as a closet nonbeliever obfuscating his message for political reasons". Strauss's hermeneutical argument —rearticulated throughout his subsequent writings (most notably in The City and Man [1964])—is that, before

4292-523: The script is from Egypt, Sumer, or Assyria. For many centuries, European knowledge of Mesopotamia was largely confined to often dubious classical sources , as well as biblical writings. From the Middle Ages onward, there were scattered reports of ancient Mesopotamian ruins. As early as the 12th century, the ruins of Nineveh were correctly identified by Benjamin of Tudela , also known as Benjamin Son of Jonah,

4366-579: The study of the period. The region's, and the world's first cities and city-states like Ur are archaeologically invaluable for studying the growth of urbanization. Scholars of Assyriology develop proficiency in the two main languages of Mesopotamia: Akkadian (including its major dialects) and Sumerian . Familiarity with neighbouring languages such as Biblical Hebrew , Hittite , Elamite , Hurrian , Indo-Anatolian (also called Indo-Hittite ), Imperial Aramaic , Eastern Aramaic dialects, Old Persian , and Canaanite are useful for comparative purposes, and

4440-637: The subsequent decipherment of cuneiform was carried out using the multilingual Achaemenid royal inscriptions , comparing the previously deciphered Persian with the Assyrian cuneiform where used in parallel scripts. Usage of the term began to expand after it was noticed that, in addition to Old Persian and Assyrian, the cuneiform script had been used for a sister language, Babylonian. Babylonian and Assyrian had diverged around 2000 BCE from their ancestor, an older Semitic language that their speakers referred to as "Akkadian". From 1877, excavations at Girsu showed that before Akkadian, cuneiform had been used to write

4514-408: The tablets discovered by V. Scheil in 1897 on the site of Sippara. Jacques de Morgan 's exceptionally important work at Susa lies outside the limits of Babylonia. Not so, the American excavations (1903–1904) under EJ Banks at Bismaya (Ijdab), and those of the University of Pennsylvania at Nippur between 1889 and 1900, where Mr JH Haynes has systematically and patiently uncovered the remains of

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4588-463: The tacit heart of their writings—a heart or message irreducible to "the letter" or historical dimension of texts. Explicitly following Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 's lead, Strauss indicates that medieval political philosophers, no less than their ancient counterparts, carefully adapted their wording to the dominant moral views of their time, lest their writings be condemned as heretical or unjust, not by "the many" (who did not read), but by those "few" whom

4662-411: The text succumbed to the overwhelming authority of the Midrash. It was, therefore, providential that, just at the time when the Midrash was paramount, the close study of the text of the Hebrew Bible, at least in one direction, was pursued with rare energy and perseverance by the Masorites , who set themselves to preserving and transmitting the pronunciation and correct reading of the text. The Mikra ,

4736-416: The text, arrived at by a correct division of the sentences and words, formed the course of instruction in the Hebrew Bible. The scribes were also required to know the Targum, the Aramaic translation of the text. The Targum made possible an immediate comprehension of the text, but was continuously influenced by the exegesis taught in the schools. The reading of the biblical text, which was combined with that of

4810-428: The whole Mishnah , he had only heard of that principle a great many years later ( Shab 63a). Kahana's admission is characteristic of the centuries following the final redaction of the Talmud. The primary meaning is no longer considered, but it becomes more and more the fashion to interpret the text according to the meaning given to it in traditional literature. The ability and even the desire for original investigation of

4884-425: The written Law; and the non-legalistic Aggadah , a compendium of Rabbinic homilies of the parts of the Pentateuch not connected with Law. In the halakhic as well as in the aggadic exegesis, the expounder endeavored not so much to seek the original meaning of the text as to find authority in a Hebrew Bible passage for established concepts and ideas, rules of conduct, and teachings, for which he wished to locate

4958-457: Was at first called Babylonian and/or Assyrian, but has now come to be known as Akkadian . From 1850 onwards, there was a growing suspicion that the Semite inhabitants of Babylon and Assyria were not the inventors of cuneiform system of writing, and that they had instead borrowed it from some other language and culture. In 1850, Edward Hincks published a paper suggesting that cuneiform was instead invented by some non-Semitic people who had preceded

5032-442: Was attempted. After the death of George Smith at Aleppo in 1876, an expedition was sent by the British Museum (1877–1879), under the conduct of Hormuzd Rassam , to continue his work at Nineveh and its neighbourhood. Excavations in the mounds of Balaw~t, called Imgur-Bel by the Assyrians, 15 miles east of Mosul , resulted in the discovery of a small temple dedicated to the god of dreams by Ashurnasirpal II (883 BC), containing

5106-442: Was begun in earnest in 1842, with Paul-Émile Botta , the French consul at Mosul. The excavations of P.E. Botta at Khorsabad and Austen H. Layard (from 1845) at Nimrud and Nineveh , as well as the successful decipherment of the cuneiform system of writing opened up a new world. Layard's discovery of the library of Ashurbanipal put the materials for reconstructing the ancient life and history of Assyria and Babylonia into

5180-497: Was determined to be alphabetic and consisting of 44 characters, and was written in Old Persian . It was first deciphered by Georg Friedrich Grotefend (based on work of Friedrich Munter ) and Henry Creswicke Rawlinson between 1802 and 1848. Class II proved more difficult to translate. In 1850, Edward Hincks published a paper showing that the Class II was not alphabetical, but was in fact both syllabic and ideographic, which led to its translation between 1850 and 1859. The language

5254-421: Was first used by Ernest Renan in 1859 as a parallel to the term Egyptology , in a discussion of the translation of Assyrian terms from other cuneiform languages. By 1897 Fritz Hommel described the term as misleading, and today the International Association for Assyriology itself calls the term "old-fashioned". The term is widely considered ambiguous, being defined in different ways by different scholars in

5328-549: Was sent to Babylonia, where he discovered the site of the temple of the sun-god of Sippara at Abu-Habba, and so fixed the position of the two Sipparas or Sepharvaim. Abu-Habba lies south-west of Baghdad , midway between the Euphrates and Tigris , on the south side of a canal, which may once have represented the main stream of the Euphrates, Sippara of the goddess Anunit, now Dir, being on its opposite bank. Meanwhile, from 1877–1881,

5402-560: Was shortly followed by André Michaux , a French botanist and explorer, who sold the French Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris an inscribed boundary stone found near Baghdad. The first known archeological excavation in Mesopotamia was led by Abbé Beauchamp , papal vicar general at Baghdad , excavating the sculpture now generally known as the " Lion of Babylon ." Abbé Beauchamp's memoirs of his travels, published in 1790, sparked

5476-571: Was the art of esoteric communication. This was especially apparent in medieval times when heterodox political thinkers wrote under the threat of the Inquisition or comparably obtuse tribunals. Strauss's argument is not that the medieval writers he studies reserved one exoteric meaning for the many ( hoi polloi ) and an esoteric, hidden one for the few (hoi oligoi), but that, through rhetorical stratagems including self-contradiction and hyperboles, these writers succeeded in conveying their proper meaning at

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